His Diamond Bride

‘Is it? Look at him. A feller like that can have any girl he wants, and don’t kid yourself that he’s all faithful and perfect because he isn’t. He takes what’s offered, like they all do.’

‘Why are you trying to turn me against him?’ Dee asked desperately.

‘Because I like you and you deserve better. Look, my dear, I can understand that you want to grab him while you can. After all, he’s a catch and you’re no great beauty. No offence meant.’

‘None taken,’ Dee assured her quietly.

‘But give him a miss. He’ll break your heart.’

She could stand it no more, but fled blindly, at first not even noticing that she was heading back to the airfield. She stopped a few yards from the wire perimeter, breathing hard. In the distance she could see lights, young men coming and going, laughing. They were ready for anything but expected no call tonight. Some of the figures in shirts and trousers were actually female, taken into the Air Force to serve as mechanics. She remembered how she and Mark had shared a joke about that long ago.

And then she saw him, walking across the grass in the company of two other young men, their laughter carried on the evening air. Three young women, also in uniform, were with them, in a high state of excitement.

Suddenly Mark stopped, turned to one, took her face in his hands and delivered a smacking kiss. Then the next. Then the third, while his male companions cheered and clapped. While the girls giggled and mimed shyness.

At this distance Dee knew she couldn’t be seen, but she still began to move backwards, seeking the protection of the shadows, talking sensibly to herself.

What she had seen meant nothing. Nothing at all. He hadn’t kissed those girls romantically or passionately, but swiftly, one after another, in front of an audience, as if in fulfilment of a bet. Yes, that was it. A bet. Now they were all headed for the tent where the six of them would spend the evening together in innocent camaraderie.

But Mark was the last one to go into the tent, held back by a girl who grasped his hand and seemed to be pleading with him. He was arguing, laughing, refusing her something she wanted. Dee held her breath, knowing that the decision he took now was crucial.

But he made no decision. The others came out, seized him and hustled him in. The tent flap descended. Silence. Now she would never know what he would have done.

Be sensible. You’ve always known he was a flirt, and these are special conditions. Anything that happens now doesn’t count. He didn’t go with her, and he probably wouldn’t have done.

But now Sylvia was there in her head, saying, ‘If he wanted to flirt, he flirted. If I showed that I minded, I was “making a fuss about nothing”.’

Mrs Gorton seemed to be there as well, joining in the chorus of warning, but Dee refused to listen. She began to run in the direction of the bus stop, but when she reached it she raced on, faster and faster, as though in this way she could outrun the truth. She ran until she could run no more, then slowed to a walk and groped her way through the darkness for an hour, until she reached home.

It took a while to talk herself into calm, but she managed it. Mark was risking his life for his country, and if he was occasionally tempted to look away from his fiancee-a fiancee who he didn’t love, she reminded herself-who knew the strain he was under? What right did she have to judge him?

Bit by bit, she persuaded herself that she was in the wrong. It took much effort for her sensible side kept fighting back, saying that he was selfish and immature. After a while she managed to silence common sense and send it slinking off into banishment, but it cast a grim look at her, warning that it would be back.

It tried one assault in a conversation she had with Patsy, who lived in the next street, whose husband was known as a ‘bit of a lad’, unable to resist temptation, but always returning home in the end with a sheepish look and the plea of, ‘You know it’s you I really love.’

Recently she’d heard that he’d been captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. After sighing about how much she missed him, Patsy added wryly, ‘But at least now I know where he is every night.’

Dee smiled and escaped as soon as she could, but she couldn’t escape the voice that said she’d just seen her own future.

There were small incidents that might mean nothing, like the weekend he was supposed to come and stay the night with the family, but cancelled at the last moment.

Be reasonable, she told herself. He’s a fighter doing his duty. He can’t put you first. The phrase even if he wanted to floated through her mind and was finally dismissed.

It was Pete who delivered the final blow. Granted a few days leave from the airfield, he sought to earn a little extra money at the garage. Joe was glad to see him. Since Mark’s departure he’d been working alone and needed help.

‘He’s a good mechanic,’ he told Dee when she came home that night. ‘And I’ve said he must have supper with us tonight, because I knew you’d want to talk to him about Mark.’

Delighted, she hurried out to find Pete just tidying in the garage.

‘Did he give you a letter for me?’ she asked, ‘or a message?’

He seemed embarrassed. ‘No, I don’t see much of him. We’d better hurry in. I promised your dad not to keep supper waiting.’

‘But you can talk to me about Mark first, can’t you?’

‘There’s nothing to say,’ he said desperately. ‘He’s the highest of the high and I’m the lowest of the low. We don’t talk.’

She waited for the desperate feeling to settle inside her, enough for her to speak calmly.

‘What is it you don’t want to tell me, Pete?’

‘Look, it’s nothing. Something and nothing.’

‘Go on.’

‘They all fool around-not much else to do-and Maisie’s just there for the taking-it didn’t mean anything, only he was a bit late getting back and the top brass got mad at him.’

‘Was this two weekends ago?’ she asked, referring to the time he’d been expected but didn’t come.

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘Thanks, Pete. Don’t worry about it, and don’t mention it to my parents.’

‘Look, honestly-’

‘I said it’s all right. The subject’s closed. Finished.’

He wasn’t an imaginative man, but the sight of her face alarmed him. A woman who’d aged five years in five seconds might have looked like that.

He shivered.

CHAPTER NINE

IT WASN’T easy to set up the meeting but Dee managed it, choosing another cafe near the airfield, not the one where they had met before and where Mrs Gorton’s presence would be all too evident.

While she waited, she took a few long breaths to calm herself. What she had to do now must be done carefully, with just the perfect air of amused calm. At the last moment she felt she’d got it just right, and when Mark appeared she was able to regard him with her head on one side and a faint smile touching her lips.

‘I’m glad you could find the time for me,’ she teased.

‘Yes, well, my commanding officer-’

‘Actually, I meant Maisie.’

Only now did she understand how much she’d longed for him to deny it, but his appalled face made any such fantasy impossible.

‘How the hell did you hear about that?’ he demanded violently.

‘Oh, you’re famous for your exploits, in and out of battle.’

‘Look, it meant nothing. Don’t get it out of proportion. It started with just a few drinks and-’

‘And Maisie came, too,’ she supplied. ‘These things happen, I know. It’s not important.’

He regarded her curiously. ‘Not important?’ he echoed, as if unable to believe his ears. ‘You really mean that?’